Evaluation of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2020-2023

The Committee of Ministers (CM) of the Council of Europe (CoE) adopted the Action Plan for Georgia 2020-2023 in the end of 2019. It is meant to support the country’s effort to honour its obligations as a member state of the CoE and is in line with European standards of human rights, rule of law and democracy. The objectives of the Action Plan include protecting and promoting human rights and dignity, ensuring social rights, ensuring justice, strengthening and countering threats to the rule of law, strengthening democratic governance, and promoting participation and diversity. The objective of the evaluation is to draw lessons from implementation and to provide the stakeholders of the CoE Action Plan with an objective assessment of the achieved results. These results will influence the preparation of the future CoE Action Plans in Georgia but also other countries. Hence, the overall aim is to enhance their relevance and effectiveness. The evaluation comprised the Country Action Plan for Georgia 2020-2023, which includes 34 projects. A sample of the projects were reviewed more closely to identify findings and draw conclusions and recommendations. The evaluation focused on three evaluation criteria: relevance, added effectiveness and value. A mixed methods approach, including desk review, semi-structured interviews, surveys, case studies and/or focus group discussions, was applied to answer the evaluation questions.